The Merv Oasis: Travels and Adventures
East of the Caspian During the Years 1879-80-81,
Including Five Months' Residence Among
the Tekkes of Merv
By
Edmund O'Donovan
Published by G. P. Putnam's sons, 1883 Volume II
Page 71
ASKABAD. 71
CHAPTEE XXXIV.
ACROSS THE ATTOK TO KELAT-I-NADRI.
Adkabad — Pursuing the fugitives — Yomud
Turkmen — Occupation of Ashkhabad —
Feelings of the border population — The horrors of
war — An escort of robbers — Khosrow Tepe
— Dergana- Mistaken for a tax assessor — Kaka —
Changing the courses of rivers — The Tejend swamp —
Homage to the victors — Persian neutrality — Lotfabad to
Kelat-i-Nadri — Shillingan— Mak- dum Kosgun
— Nomads settled down — A Turkmen
chiefs abode — Primitive camps — A wild
road — Foxes and jackals — Different species of
partridge — Edible tulip-roots — Sun-baked
tree-trunks — Khivabad
— Icehouses — Arehingan — Kelat-i-Nadri
— A Persian valley of Easselas — Regular troops
— The last struggles against the conquerors-
-Rectifying the boundaries of Persia — Russian
pretensions — Bringing back
the fugitive Tekkes— Conciliatory measures a la
Rusxe— The spoils of war — A Russian agent on
my track — Invitation
to Merv — Turkmen
presents — Honors that must be paid for — Merv and British
interference — Embassy to Kandahar —
Leaving Kelat-i-Nadri — The agent again —
Intimidating my escort — Approach of the Cossacks
— On the road to Merv.
ASKABAD had been frequently spoken of in Europe as a
second Geok Tepe,
on which the Tekkes could
fall back when driven from that fortress. Nothing
could be further from the fact, as the town possessed no
means whatever of making a defense against an enemy, much
less against one flushed with victory. It had been indeed
a place of importance in former days, and thus a certain
prestige was attached to its name, but since
its capture by the Turkmen seventy years before it had
been allowed to fall into complete ruin. The walls
and towers had crumbled down, the roofs had been stripped
from the houses, and a few families
of wandering Tekkes, camped rather than settled among the
ruins, were the only inhabitants. Even these had
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